Two under-the-radar crus in the Southern Rhône—Lirac and Rasteau— are managing to deliver ultra-premium quality and affordable price tags.
can be many things. But it is rarely simultaneously all of these things: ultra-premium, progressively farmed, modern, rooted thousands of years in the past and affordable and delicious enough to drink, with pleasure, every day.
At the top of the heap are the crus. There are a total of 17 crus, with eight in the north and nine in the south. Considered the crème de la crème, the wines that emerge from these crus are prized for their terroir-driven expressions of premium land. About 20% of the wines from the Rhône are officially from crus, and many command prices that soar well into the hundreds per bottle.
Rasteau, meanwhile, has been a victim of changing fashions. The cru rose to fame for Vin Doux, a Grenache-based fortified wine that royals and power brokers the world over coveted—until they didn’t.. “I don’t even make a Vin Doux. But my family made incredible Vin Doux for many years. People are just so afraid of sugar now, that kind of wine is consumed maybe once a year at Christmas.”
Lirac, the Rhône’s southernmost cru, has a Mediterranean climate with 2,700 hours of sun a year. The cru’s land, on the right bank of the Rhône, is exposed to the rising sun. There are three primary types of soil: limestone plateaus covered with a layer of red clay and pebbles; sand mixed with smaller stones; and soils of rounded quartz cobble stones and red clay.Chateau de Montfaucon
The range of soils and elevation in Lirac and Rasteau, the dedication to organic farming and the whipping winds of the mistral leave both crus well-placed to combat climate change.What nature doesn’t provide in terms of protection, a young and progressive new generation of vintners eagerly supplies in the cellar.“We began using bigger barriques for our white wines in 2018,” says Thierry Usseglio, owner-operator at.
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